Trail of Fate tyt-2

by Michael Spradlin

  “Four of them are dead,” he said. He stopped, still struggling to breathe.

  “Let me see if I can treat. .”

  “NO!” he said, and squeezed my arm so tightly that I thought the bones would break. Even near death his strength was remarkable. He groaned and closed his eyes, then raised his head again to speak.

  “No. Leave now. Celia will move everyone from the villages to Montsegur, our fortress, but the High Counsel will not give up easily. You are a soldier. You are needed there. Celia needs you. Jean-Luc, the others, they are far too young. . and inexperienced. . Good men, but they have never seen a real battle. Celia. . she said she saw something in you. I was not. .” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, but then his head came up again.

  “I. . was not. . impressed,” he said. He gripped my arm. “But you have returned here, so you must be braver than I thought. Now go. They will need your help. Go.”

  “Philippe, I will see you are given a Christian burial-” I started to say.

  “No! No time. We are Cathars! We care not for the church and its rules. Leave my bones where they fall. Go. Swear to me you will go to her,” he said. “Templars give an oath to protect the innocent, do they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then as a soldier, promise you will defend her. On my soul, she and her people. . our people. . are innocent,” he groaned, and closed his eyes again.

  “You have my vow, Philippe. I will go to her,” I said, placing my free hand over his. “Everything I can do, I will. On my honor as a Templar.”

  Philippe nodded. Angel whined again as Philippe took one more ragged breath and life left him. Maryam bowed her head and said a few more quiet words. For reasons I couldn’t understand, I felt a profound sadness. Philippe had certainly not cared for me, but I offered up a silent prayer for this man who had so bravely given his life for his friends.

  “Let’s go,” I said, starting back through the woods toward the stream. Maryam called behind me.

  “Tristan, wait. What about Philippe? We can’t just leave him here.”

  “You heard him. He made his wishes clear.”

  “Yes, but you can’t just not bury the poor man,” she said. Sir Thomas had once told me how the Saracens had very strict laws governing the handling and burial of their dead.

  “Maryam, I know how you feel. But Philippe’s faith was his own. It is not our place to question him. He asked me to go to Celia’s aid as quickly as possible. Burying him will take hours.”

  “Stop!” she shouted at me. I stopped.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Tristan? What is going on here?”

  “I. . You saw. Philippe is dead; Celia and her people need my help.”

  “Do they now?” I wasn’t sure but I thought I detected just an edge of disgust or maybe sarcasm in Maryam’s voice.

  “Yes. You heard Philippe. They are in trouble. I promised I would try to help them.”

  “So you’ll forget your ‘vital’ mission and traipse off to help someone you just met and hardly know?”

  “Maryam, please. Philippe just gave his life for his people! They are obviously in grave danger. You heard me swear an oath to help. An oath, Maryam. We Templars tend to take such promises very seriously. I cannot-”

  “Tristan, I don’t believe you for a minute,” she interrupted me. “You’re using this oath as an excuse to go back to this girl.”

  “Well, you are entitled to your thoughts. But I assure you. .”

  Maryam held up a hand.

  “What do you think you’re doing, squire? Putting you-and me, for that matter-in danger? Before you met this girl, you were single-mindedly focused on getting to England with your ‘dispatches. ’ Have you stopped to consider everything? What if you go to this place and find Celia? What if you don’t make it out alive? What will happen to your mission then?”

  “If you didn’t want to come with me, maybe you should have gone with Robard,” I said. But I regretted it instantly, for I’d said it more harshly than I’d wished. Maryam didn’t deserve such a sharp reply.

  She didn’t flinch from my words though.

  “Maybe I should have. But I didn’t. And I have my reasons. But nothing before this has dissuaded you from finding a way to England. Not Sir Hugh, not nearly drowning in a storm or being stranded in a strange country. But you meet this girl, you swear an ‘oath’ and all of a sudden your mission is forgotten. I think Robard was right. It’s not oath at all. You are smitten.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Are you questioning my honor?”

  “Is it? Is it really ridiculous? You tell me.”

  Maryam’s words made me wince, for in truth she was right on the mark. For reasons I could not explain, I had thought of little more than Celia since watching her and her group ride off. When we’d encountered the High Counsel on the beach, my first thought was of her safety. Though I barely knew her, I was suddenly consumed with finding her and making sure she was safe. Was this what being smitten meant? I had no idea. Before I’d left the monastery, I’d barely even seen a girl. And more important, did I make a promise to Philippe only because it gave me the chance to see her again?

  “Maryam. . she. . I am not smitten,” I said defensively.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I am not,” I said.

  “Are.”

  “I am. . Stop it! She. . I. . am only. . I have an obligation to her since she came to my aid when I was shipwrecked. Now I’ve promised Philippe whatever help I can give. There is a debt unpaid.”

  “Really? All I heard her do was ridicule you for joining the Knights Templar.”

  “She did not.” All right. In truth, really, she had. But Maryam hadn’t heard any of the nice things she’d said. Or seen her face in the moonlight. She hadn’t witnessed the ice-blue pools of Celia’s eyes. Oh dear.

  “Hmph.” Maryam sounded disgusted.

  I tried to apologize. “Maryam, I’m sorry. .”

  She held up her hand again. I was becoming very familiar with the hand. At least it didn’t have a dagger in it.

  “Let’s go,” she said with disgust. She pushed past me and made her way back to the stream, turning north. She said nothing for a long while as I stumbled along behind her.

  “How are we even going to find her?” she finally asked, her voice still dripping with anger.

  A good question. A very good question.

  And in truth I had absolutely no idea.

  IN THE SOUTHERN PYRENEES

  10

  We hiked along for several leagues. Before leaving the campsite, I’d found more wild grapes, so at least we had something to eat. With the sun high in the sky we paused to rest awhile. After catching our breath, we kept to the stream, and I kept careful watch for the spot where Celia and her followers had left its shallows. I was no forester, and truly missed Robard then, but studied the ground as closely as I could. Drawing on my memory of conversations with Celia and her group, I knew only that their base lay somewhere north. Without some kind of trail to follow I would most likely miss it completely.

  A few leagues farther north, I found a spot where several horses had climbed the bank. The tracks kept to a trail through the woods, and so we followed. A few hours later, twilight approached, and the woods opened into a wide meadow. The countryside had gotten hilly, and from the clearing, I could see mountains far off in the distance. No one had said anything about mountains. I guess since Mont meant “mountain” in French, the name of her fortress, Montsegur, should have warned me.

  “We should rest here for the night,” Maryam suggested, and I agreed. We had journeyed far and were weary. Angel ate a few grapes from my hand, then dropped immediately to the ground and was asleep instantly, her tongue lolling gently out of her mouth. I gave Maryam some grapes as well, and we found comfortable spots on the ground to sleep through the night.

  The next day as we crossed the meadow, the tracks joined up with a dirt road that wound through the forest. The hoofprints of
Celia’s horses soon mixed with the signs of other travelers, including carts and wagons. After another hour of walking we entered a small village. It was little more than a wide spot along the trail, with a tiny chapel, an inn and a few other buildings lining the crossroads.

  “Tristan, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Maryam said. “Do you think we might be able to find something to eat here besides grapes?”

  We stood off to the side of the trail and watched what few people there were in the village milling about. The church looked deserted, and we were too late in the day for morning mass. A small blacksmith shop was busy, and a few women gathered near a well across the path from the inn.

  “Let’s give it a try,” I said, heading toward the inn.

  Angel waited, curled up in a bed of grass a few steps off the trail. Maryam and I crossed through the center of the village and entered the front door. It was dark inside, with only one window at the front letting in any light, and smelled like wet dirt and wood smoke. A small fireplace with a sputtering flame took up one end of the room, and a doorway covered by a cloth curtain led away to the back. No one was in the main room, but we heard the sounds of activity beyond the curtained door.

  “Salut?” I called out. Hello.

  The curtain was pulled back and a woman of indeterminate age emerged. She wore a simple peasant frock of gray cloth, and a brown head scarf. She eyed us suspiciously, and for an instant a tremendous weight pressed down on me. I had a vision of Sir Hugh riding into the village and questioning this woman. She would tell him how we’d stopped here just a few short days ago and which direction we’d headed. But we needed food. There was no way around it.

  This was never going to work. I was stuck here, and could speak enough French to get by, but Maryam and I could never pass as natives. As soon as I asked for food, she would know I was an outsider. Sir Hugh would be able to find us easily.

  I spoke to the woman in the best French I could muster, silently cursing myself for not paying closer attention when Brother Rupert had sought to teach me his native tongue.

  “Aliments, s’il vous plait?” I asked, pointing to Maryam and myself.

  She said nothing, moving to the fireplace where an iron pot hung on a hook over the coals. Using the front of her smock, she lifted the kettle off the hook and brought it to the table, motioning for us to sit. I peered into the kettle and saw some type of still-bubbling pottage.

  The woman went through the curtain and returned seconds later with two wooden bowls and spoons, a small loaf of bread and an earthen jug. She sat it all on the table before us and made motions for us to fill the bowls and eat. So we did.

  The pottage tasted far better than it looked. Maryam smiled and concentrated on eating. The woman reappeared with two cups and poured wine from the jug, and Maryam’s eyes went wide.

  “Tristan,” she whispered. “I’m forbidden to drink wine.”

  “Give me a minute. I’ll try to distract her somehow,” I said.

  The woman stood a few paces away, watching us. I lifted my mug and raised it in her direction.

  “Croises!” I said, letting her know we were Crusaders. Perhaps I could win us some points by appealing to the woman’s sense of Christian duty. She smiled and nodded, then left for the back room again. I drank down a large gulp of wine and quickly poured what was in Maryam’s cup into my own. A few seconds later the woman emerged with a small wheel of cheese, setting it on the table before us.

  My mouth watered at the sight of it, and I took a proffered slice. I placed it on a slice of bread and bit into it. What a delight. After many days of nothing but dates, grapes and figs, and whatever we could scrounge up, it tasted wonderful.

  A familiar barking sounded from just outside the door. I thought Angel might have smelled the food and was hungry herself. Wearily I rose to my feet and took a small chunk of cheese. I was about to open the door when she growled, and I froze. I then stepped to the dirty window and peered out at the crossroads.

  The High Counsel and his fifty men rode into the village, reining their horses up at the well. Angel whined, and I cracked open the door. She darted inside.

  “Trouble,” I said to Maryam. She joined me at the window and gasped.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  By then the woman had joined us at the window. She looked out at the High Counsel and his troop, some of whom had dismounted and were standing about looking menacing. The arrival had cleared the village, as the women we had seen earlier at the well had vanished and the blacksmith had made himself scarce.

  The woman muttered something in French under her breath that I didn’t quite catch but was fairly certain was a curse. She vanished behind the curtain.

  “It looks like the High Counsel has uncovered my deception. They must be headed toward Celia’s fortress. We need to get out of here. I don’t suppose you have any ideas, do you?” I asked.

  Maryam shook her head and continued to study the scene at the well. “No. You’re the one with the ideas,” she said smugly.

  Angel whined nervously, and to quiet her I tossed her the small chunk of cheese I still held in my hand. She snatched it out of the air and swallowed it whole.

  “All right,” I said. “Maybe we can sneak out the back and. .”

  Just then the woman pulled back the curtain from the back room and waved to us.

  We followed and found another room, nearly equal in size to the one we’d been eating in but with a back entrance. The wooden door swung open, and there stood a boy about ten or twelve years old, waiting next to a small wagon with a pony hitched to it. The back of the wagon was full of hay.

  “Hide. Go,” said the woman in accented English.

  “Tristan? What is she. .?” Maryam asked, but she stopped, not understanding completely what was happening.

  But I did. Or at least I thought I did. Since we had left the campsite, without really knowing how far we needed to travel to reach Celia, I’d had a feeling we were at least getting close to her lands. And judging by this woman’s reaction when she saw the High Counsel, I decided to test my assumption.

  “Cathar?” I said to the woman.

  She nodded and smiled. She pushed a small cloth bag into my hands, holding it open. It was full of bread, cheese and apples.

  “Montsegur. Celia. Ami,” I said, pointing to myself.

  The woman nodded and smiled. I felt a brief sense of relief, despite the High Counsel’s arrival. We were on the right trail and headed toward Montsegur.

  “Hide. Now,” she said.

  “Come on, Maryam,” I said.

  I climbed up into the bed of the wagon. Maryam joined me. Angel looked at me with her head cocked.

  “Hurry, girl,” I said.

  She jumped up. The boy and the woman covered us with the hay. Then I heard the lad whistle and the wagon moved. We rolled around the side of the small inn and bounced over the bumpy ground. The ride smoothed out a little when we reached the trail leading out of town.

  I carefully reached up and cleared a small section of hay out of the way so I could see the village crossroads as we left. The High Counsel stood there, still talking to one of his soldiers in the street. The boy kept a casual pace with the wagon, not drawing attention to himself. He was just a simple farm boy completing one of his many chores.

  We were almost out of sight of the village when I heard a cracking sound and the wagon lurched to a stop. It tilted crazily to the side, and Maryam and I grunted sharply as it hit the ground. The boy muttered a curse, and I assumed the wagon’s axle had broken or the wheel had come loose. Angel whimpered, and I grabbed her about the muzzle. The hay had settled with the fall, and I gently cleared another space to look back at the village.

  As I watched them in the distance, nearly two hundred yards away, the High Counsel and his men mounted up, steered their horses about and rode down the path.

  They were headed straight for us.

  11

  The High Counsel took th
e head of the column and spurred his horse along the trail. The jangling sounds of swords and chain mail grew louder as the riders drew near. Then, softly, a familiar humming filled the air around me. Having heard it so many times before, I was relieved at first, but I still worried. I felt the Grail would protect me. But what about Maryam and the boy? What if the boy were forced to reveal our presence?

  He wasn’t visible from my position in the hay, but I offered up a prayer that he had the good sense to remain calm and not draw attention to himself. My hand was still firmly clamped over Angel’s muzzle and she wiggled beneath my grasp. We held our breath for what seemed an eternity.

  As the horses thundered toward us, she became more anxious and struggled so much that I lost my grip on her. She wormed her way out of the pile of hay and jumped off the back of the wagon, barking madly at the horses. I couldn’t see anything, but outside the wagon she put up quite a fuss. Even worse, the column reined to a stop.

  Angel ceased barking, but continued to growl and whine. Maryam and I lay frozen beneath the mound of hay, and the beating of my own heart pounded in my ears, nearly drowning out the whispering hum of the Grail.

  The High Counsel spoke to the boy in a gruff, commanding voice, but his words were muffled by the hay, as was the boy’s reply.

  Then there was only silence. Every muscle in my body was coiled and tense as if I’d been frozen solid in a sudden winter storm. The only sounds reaching my ears were Angel’s whine and the snorts of the horses as they waited impatiently to resume their trip.

  The High Counsel spoke again, but I could only hear the boy answer, “Oui.” Angel quieted. We waited and waited, and I half expected a sword or lance to come poking into the hay.

  Finally he gave an order to move out. The horses sprang to life and we heard them ride off.

  Dizzy and light-headed, I took slow, deep breaths while the feeling returned to my limbs. Angel jumped back up onto the wagon and dug at the hay in an attempt to uncover us. The boy knocked twice on the side of the wagon.

  “La voie est libre,” he told us. All clear.